Right-Handed? Place Snacks Near Your Left Hand

Desperate for a way to stop yourself from chomping on junk in the office? A simple solution could be to move them away from your dominant hand, as scientists have found things appear more attractive when in easy reach.

So right-handed people will be more tempted by goodies on their right hand side, but when the same goods are placed on the left side, the desire for food drops.

On top of this, experts believe that how we perceive people is also affected by where they stand or sit.

Researcher Dr Daniel Casasanto of Chicago University pointed out that things close to the side of your dominant hand could be favored because there's less effort.

"If you ask people to judge which of these two job applicants do you think you would hire, righties would on average choose the person on the right, while lefties would choose the person on the left," he explained.

"This becomes applicable to behaviors like voting where we are all being asked to judge candidates whose names are written on the right and left of the ballot paper. We found in a large simulated election that compared to lefties, righties will choose the candidate they see on the right of the ballot paper about 15 per cent more than lefties. So these kinds of invisible influences could have real impact."

In addition to these findings revealed during the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference, it was discovered that the brain is wired differently in left-handed and right-handed people. Emotional hubs are on different sides, which could play a big part in treating conditions like depression with electric shock therapies that stimulate one side of the brain.

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"This discovery has urgent public health implications, especially for treatments for depression and other mental health disorders designed for right-handers, and may be detrimental to everyone else," the expert said.

Dr. Casasanto also found that if a right-handed person wore a heavy glove to make them feel clumsy, they thought more like a left-handed person.